There’s more tur­moil to re­port from in­side No­var­tis’ CAR-T camp.

On Fri­day Karen Walk­er will leave a se­nior po­si­tion in charge of CMC/man­u­fac­tur­ing of CAR-Ts for No­var­tis in ex­change for a new po­si­tion she’s tak­ing at Seat­tle Ge­net­ics, End­points News has learned.

Walk­er — the VP Glob­al Head Cell and Gene Ther­a­pies Tech­ni­cal De­vel­op­ment and Man­u­fac­tur­ing at No­var­tis — was one of three se­nior ex­ecs put in charge of the cell and gene ther­a­py ini­tia­tive at the com­pa­ny last fall, ac­cord­ing to sources close to the com­pa­ny, af­ter a bruis­ing re­struc­tur­ing over the sum­mer in which the unit was chopped up and ab­sorbed in­side a huge R&D or­ga­ni­za­tion. Samuele Butera was put in charge of the com­mer­cial/busi­ness as­pect of the group while David Leb­wohl han­dles clin­i­cal ops.

“Karen Walk­er will join Seat­tle Ge­net­ics as Vice Pres­i­dent of Glob­al Qual­i­ty in mid-April,” con­firmed a spokesper­son for Seat­tle Ge­net­ics.

I con­tact­ed Er­ic Al­thoff, a spokesper­son for No­var­tis, Wednes­day night, but af­ter ac­knowl­edg­ing my query he did not fol­low up. Al­thoff has de­clined to re­spond to a fol­lowup query.

No­var­tis has been bleed­ing tal­ent through­out its glob­al or­ga­ni­za­tion for the past year. Walk­er’s de­par­ture, though, comes at a par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal stage for No­var­tis, just days af­ter the phar­ma gi­ant gained a pri­or­i­ty re­view for CTL019, putting it on a short path to per­haps the first his­toric ap­proval for a CAR-T.

Last sum­mer End­points broke the sto­ry about No­var­tis’ re­or­ga­ni­za­tion in CAR-T, which led the group’s top ex­ec, Us­man ‘Oz’ Azam, to leave No­var­tis. About 120 staffers were al­so ter­mi­nat­ed as the sep­a­rate group was pulled back in­to the R&D struc­ture.

No­var­tis has kept up a neck-and-neck race with Kite on the lead pro­gram, which has its own pi­o­neer­ing CAR-T head­ed to the FDA.

Man­u­fac­tur­ing in this field is crit­i­cal. To make this ther­a­py, physi­cians ex­tracts cells from can­cer pa­tients and then reengi­neer them with a chimeric anti­gen re­cep­tor to guide them to at­tack can­cer cells. The re­vised cells are then in­ject­ed back in­to pa­tients. To be com­pet­i­tive, a com­pa­ny has to prove not on­ly that they know how to make the ther­a­py, they al­so have to be able to turn it around quick­ly for use.

Genmab $GMAB has opted to ax one of its antibody-drug conjugates after watching it flop in the clinic.

The Danish biotech reported Tuesday that it decided to kill their program for enapotamab vedotin after the data gathered from expansion cohorts failed to measure up. According to the company:

While enapotamab vedotin has shown some evidence of clinical activity, this was not optimized by different dose schedules and/or predictive biomarkers. Accordingly, the data from the expansion cohorts did not meet Genmab’s stringent criteria for proof-of-concept.

Purdue Pharma, the producer of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, admitted Tuesday that, yes, it did contribute to America’s opioid epidemic.

The drugmaker formally pleaded guilty to three criminal charges, the AP reported, including getting in the way of the DEA’s efforts to combat the crisis, failing to prevent the painkillers from ending up on the black market and encouraging doctors to write more painkiller prescriptions through two methods: paying them in a speakers program and directing a medical records company to send them certain patient information. Purdue’s plea deal calls for $8.3 billion in criminal fines and penalties, but the company is only liable for a fraction of that total — $225 million.

Amgen is shrugging off a 14-year development alliance and the tens of millions of dollars spent to develop a new heart drug at Cytokinetics after a Phase III trial turned up weak data — leaving Cytokinetics to soldier on alone.

Omecamtiv mecarbil technically worked, meeting the primary composite endpoint in the Phase III GALACTIC-HF study. But it missed a key secondary endpoint, which analysts had been following as a key marker for success — reduction of cardiovascular (CV) death. While Cytokinetics celebrated the results, its stock tanked 43% upon the news, and analysts warned of an uncertain path ahead. Now, Amgen wants out.